> In 2010 and 2011, the FAA issued two fines against Dause and his business for failing to comply with federal aviation regulations, totaling $933,000. But FAA spokesperson Gregor told SFGATE that the fine was never collected by the agency, which eventually referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for further action. The Justice Department did not respond to questions about whether the fine was ever paid.
Amazing how a business can just decide to not pay a fine to the FAA, and apparently it's all cool. If I missed $200 on my income taxes, the IRS would be up my ass within a year for it, but apparently the FAA doesn't urgently need that $1M.
EDIT: It keeps getting better!
> Turner’s parents filed a wrongful death suit against both Dause and the Parachute Center; three years later, a judge awarded the family a $40 million judgment, writing in the decision that Dause was personally responsible for the payment. Francine Turner told SFGATE the family has never received any payments from Dause or the Parachute Center.
So he doesn't have to pay judgments either? I need to learn this guy's amazing financial life-hack!
Isn't actually collecting judgements hard? I thought I read, in some article about how Alex Jones hasn't paid any of his judgement, that it's not uncommon to take decades before seeing any money. Often people settle for a greatly reduced sum that they can get right now, for that very reason.
Please note that this is a specifically American. In most other countries, a judge simply issue an order for the banks most of the time electronically and the funds are automatically collected in a electronic manner.
The Alex Jones company bankruptcy is ongoing. Courts take time. The debtors have to agree to what they are willing to accept (and in the case of AJones, he is still defending against other lawsuits that might grow his group of bankruptcy debtors).
In regards to collecting, if a business is still open and collecting revenue, it’s a fairly easy target for collecting _something_. Whether a full $40 million judgement on a person/company can be collected is a different beast. There is a tremendous incentive to throw lots of billable hours at lawyers to appeal, or lots of billable hours to financial advisors to hide assets (shell companies, offshore jurisdictions, family members, fake identities, hard currency / commodities, etc). There is some evidence that AJones has done some of this (and that the Trump company at the heart of the NY fraud case has tried to migrate to FL and send assets to other entities).
If you can social engineer the name of their bank, banks are quite responsive when sent a judgment and a writ of attachment (which courts are usually quick to give when they've entered your judgment).
Realistically, if you don't pay your IRS taxes, nothing will happen to you for many years. If you're not egregious at doing so, you'll probably never be noticed. During the Obama years I believe they publicly stated they weren't doing audits of anyone below 400k in income.
The underfunded IRS during that time disproportionately audited people who got the Earned Income Tax Credit because it was easy and cheap compared to going after rich people. Where are you even getting that “publicly stated they weren't doing audits of anyone below 400k” from? Why does it even matter what they publicly stated at this point?
>If I missed $200 on my income taxes, the IRS would be up my ass within a year for it
I mean, the IRS would... write you some sternly worded letters. They might call you on the phone. What else do you think would happen? Can you find an example of anyone who just ignored the IRS's letters over a $200 bill and something happened to them?
Society largely depends on people doing what they're told. Being a sociopath and just refusing to do what government agencies tell you to is a life-hack, of sorts. Just look at (some of) our billionaire class.
They'd probably just use a treasury offset to collect. Not sure if they'd do it for $200, but I wouldn't be surprised. AAFES used to do it for less. Maybe they're more vindictive than the IRS.
I have jumped at this facility. My experience was similar to the description: rushed safety video that is playing while you are simultaneously given waivers to sign, forcing you to divert your focus between the two.
Not that watching the safety video would have helped in this case, as the instructor was not properly trained and vetted in the first place.
Still, it shows the careless attitude of the business, and the skewed priorities of profit over people.
I grew up in the area and the locals knew about all the deaths. If you told anybody you were going skydiving there, people would assume you were crazy or suicidal.
Several years ago, a co-worker got a work group together for a groupon for this place. I lived. I didn't know about any of this. I assumed this was all tightly regulated.
I feel like locals always say that about any DropZone near them. I have heard the same about my previous home DropZone and the current one. Both are very active DropZone (tops of the USA). But yeah, every skydiver has heard about Lodi.
>Not that watching the safety video would have helped in this case, as the instructor was not properly trained and vetted in the first place.
The article is a little vague about the failure but I'm a skydiver and this might not be the instructor's fault. I know that sounds insane but hear me out.
The article says "main and reserve parachutes had tangled, preventing either from opening". This could mean a few things:
1. Neither chute was ever deployed - "total malfunction" on main and reserve where they're both stuck in the container (backpack thing holding the parachute).
An instructor following perfect protocol with a poorly packed reserve would have died here, and they likely did not pack the reserve themselves. Reserve chutes are packed by a master rigger who's required to apply a seal and update a little paper record on each rig indicating when it was packed and by whom. These are meant to be checked before you're allowed to get on a plane. Reserves are (thankfully) rarely opened until they're due to be repacked based on time. There's overlap between master riggers and instructors who handle tandem jumps, but the reserve was most likely not packed by that instructor.
2. Main deployed but has a "partial malfunction" (out but not fully open), reserve then deployed and tangles with the main.
This would be the instructors fault - in this case they should cut away the main before deploying the reserve.
3. Main has a "total malfunction" where it doesn't come out at all, instructor deploys reserve, then main deploys late and tangles with the reserve.
This one is inconclusive but probably not the instructor's fault. Protocol here is don't waste time cutting your main because you're falling fast with no drag from a partially deployed chute and the main is unlikely to ever open. The reason it could still be the instructors fault is if they had a chance to cut away the main after it came out and failed to do so before they tangled.
I did a tandem freefall jump that had a "partial malfunction".
The square canopy had one end closed off by lines looped over the top of the chute, perhaps 75% was still inflated. The instructor decided to keep the main chute.
There was still significant drag, but no steering on the closed side, so we just spiralled into the ground at relatively high speed. The wind calculation was correct, so we hit a soft ploughed field.
As I recall, free fall is about 120 mph, while a tangled chute can cut it to 60 mph. I know this from a newspaper article about a man who survived a tangled chute fall onto pavement.
> Main deployed but has a "partial malfunction" (out but not fully open), reserve then deployed and tangles with the main.
This would be the instructors fault - in this case they should cut away the main before deploying the reserve.
I’ve done a “solo” skydive where you jump out with 2 instructors and then they pull the line and you’re on your own. As a part of the training, we just had one motion (if I’m remembering right) to jettison the main and switch to reserve. Is that a potential configuration or do I have it wrong?
Scary. Sounds like a "scuba diving for newbies" session I took, where they would literally force you 16 meters underwater with only a quick spoken instruction about how to clear your goggles etc. Hair-raising.
> According to its data, there were 10 fatalities out of an estimated 3.65 million jumps in 2023
So, among the USPA's membership, there's a ~3 * 10^-6 chance of death per jump, which is basically compatible with how it had been described to me in the past: ~1/1000 chance that your main chute doesn't deploy, times a ~1/1000 chance that the reserve doesn't deploy, times a small factor because people (especially beginners) do dumb stuff.
At $10M statistical life in the US, that's $30 per jump, which is less than, but not vastly less than, the price of the jump itself. It seems quite plausible that the jump centers that are not members of the USPA have higher risk, which could start too look overly risky (in the specific sense that consumers would be much less likely to participate if they had access to the figures). But I'd bet it's less than $200/jump worth of risk.
I wish these sorts of discussions would focus more on the numbers and making sure the risks are tracked and public.
The article also gives reason to be skeptical of the quoted "10 fatalities out of an estimated 3.65 million jumps in 2023". If we count 28 known fatalities at this one facility from 1983 to 2021, we get around 0.75 fatalities per year.
In other words, we would expect that 14 facilities of similar death counts to the one in the article would equal the total US fatalities for a year. The USPA dropzone locator [1] lists 142 facilities, so if we take everything at face value then this facility is ~10x worse than the average for USPA members.
> But I'd bet it's less than $200/jump worth of risk
In this case at least, it seems that this specific facility is higher risk than that. And with a lack of legally mandated reporting requirements, I'd say the onus is on a facility to prove safety once it's averaging a death every 1.3 years.
> so if we take everything at face value then this facility is ~10x worse than the average for USPA members.
The issue is that I would expect at least a factor of 10 typical variation in the number of yearly jumps done at different facilities, so it’s hard to conclude anything without getting at least a rough guess of how many jumps they are doing. (The article correctly notes that the inability to find this number publicly is a real problem.)
Yes, but those statistics are only for USPA members. They don't include the more sketchy places like the skydiving center the article is talking about.
So it seems the lesson here is to make sure you only jump at places that are part of the USPA.
> ~1/1000 chance that your main chute doesn't deploy
Yes
> times a ~1/1000 chance that the reserve doesn't deploy
No. There is way smaller chance that your reserve would not deploy, not even to M, but MM. I think there were some stories about fatalities caused by this. The one issue I remember - there was a gear issue in a condition, when a skydiver is passed out and on his back - AAD (Automatic Activation Device) fired at 1000 feet, and the reserve did not open in time. I am not sure if that was a fatality or not. But all the containers of this type went through modification.
Main does not open because they are packed by skydivers or packers in 5–10 minutes (or 30-60 if you are new). So you can skip the step, or do it not correctly, or forget something. Reserves are packed by FAA certified riggers and it takes at least an hour to pack the reserve. Reserves are packed similar to BASE canopies (where there is only one canopy, and it has to open).
> a small factor because people (especially beginners) do dumb stuff
That is a big factor. Similar to car drivers, some skydivers just feel too confident at the beginning of their career and start doing low, high-performance turns. And obviously, there are some other various factors - weather, other skydivers, other people, and own mistakes.
> No. There is way smaller chance that your reserve would not deploy, not even to M, but MM.
Thanks. Do you have a cite on this? I am pretty skeptical of any complicated mechanical system (including not just the packed suit, but also the calibrated altimeter, etc) having a 10^-6 malfunction rate. Like, I would consider having the altimeter mistakenly calibrated to lower elevation a case of “the reserve failing to deploy” even if it was packed perfectly or whatever. Likewise if your main deploys wonky, you cut it and get into a spin, and then reserve gets tangled as it comes out.
Sky diving is dangerous, but not that dangerous. A single jump is less dangerous than bunion removal surgery. (0.004% chance of death for skydiving and 0.01% for bunion removal) This puts the LD50 of parachute jumps around 1,700 jumps. (Not exactly something I would do for a job but would try once without worrying too much.)
However, there is definitely the possibility of death from jumping out of an airplane and I don't think any reasonable person would think there isn't.
The same could apply to economics. I feel like US stats still haven't caught up to actual numbers. For example, the number of six figure jobs.
A big problem is that when numbers change quickly, median numbers, or even average numbers, don't immediately capture that change. It can take YEARS for the real stats to come out.
That being said, it is absolutely ridiculous that this has become the drama it has. Federal departments should be given lawyers and be allowed to go after people.
In rock climbing there's some evidence that there is a U-shaped risk curve. Newbs who do dumb stuff on one end and experienced climbers who get complacent on the other.
That sounds implausibly high to me? When I click through I see:
There are general risks of surgery: wound infection 7%, bone infection 1%, painful scar (5%), blood clot in the leg or lung 1%, Complex regional Pain Syndrome(lasting debilitating pain) 1%, bone healing problems 1%, amputation 0.01%, death 0.01%.
Seems plausible. My relative died after getting a small cut on her toe which led to a staph infection that spread to her kidneys. Symptoms aren't necessarily as obviously tied to such an origin as one would think, and can be easily overlooked for too long.
Surgery has gotten a lot safer in the last couple decades however, there are still risks. General anesthesia used to be ten times more dangerous than it is now but it's still not zero.
But is that sky diving number for just general skydiving, or a tandem dive with a completely new to the sport customer like anyone here would actually care about.
Like one, I assume tandem has a higher incident rate, and also that first time divers has a higher rate as well.
I would have assumed that tandem dives have a lower rate of fatality - I'd imagine that an instructor pays a bit more attention if someone else's life is at stake (this is just my intuition).
edit: from a cursory google search, tandem dives are about 2.5 times safer.
The source from the statistic is international including statistics from the USA, Germany and France. If you want further details you can read the NIH article here.
As I understand it, single beginner jumps are more dangerous than tandems with experienced jumpers which are more dangerous than experienced singletons. However, I don't think there is a significant difference overall. But in this study, there is no such data other than the overall statistics.
Could you imagine being a skydiving instructor? Strapping yourself to some stranger, a first-timer in a terrifying task, and jumping out of an airplane with them? I'd only do it if they wore a straightjacket.
This is a bit of looking at the statistics the wrong way.
I'm a skydiving instructor, btw, with about 2,000 jumps.
Skydiving is remarkably safe considering all the factors involved. That's primarily for two reasons: The gear and the training
* Like anything in aviation, the gear has iterated over the years to be very safe. Skydiving in the early days was less safe. We have better gear now that has made it much safer. Same for aviation: Airplanes have a lot of safety features that they didn't have decades ago, and fatalities and incidents in general are extremely rare.
* Training has come a long way as well, with a more standardized curriculum and like the gear, iterations over the decade to address weak points. Procedures have been developed so when faced with a situation, we can react instead of analyze. Problem solving in the sky is not a good option. So the likely things that could happen, we have procedures for that we memorize. They're simple for solo skydivers, and a bit more complicated for a tandem instructor.
With well maintained gear and proper currency on procedures, skydiving is very safe. The most common issues are sprained ankles or broken wrists from band landings.
So what causes the deaths?
Like the rest of aviation, we are the biggest risk factors: Human error.
One of the leading reasons why skydivers are killed is a sport called "swooping", which is spinning a parachute to build speed and planning out right above the ground. It's a sport with very little margin for error. 10 feet can meant the difference of dragging your toe across the water for an epic video clip or a broken femur (or worse). In skydiving, femur is a verb. "I heard so-and-so femured". Do a Google search on it and you can see both why swooping is appealing the practitioners and also dangerous as fuck.
A tandem jump doesn't involve swooping. So by virtue of being a tandem passenger, the leading cause of death of skydivers is eliminated. Lumping all skydives together from a risk perspective doesn't make much sense, given the wide variety of risks associated with various types of skydiving. Tandem skydives, while not risk free, are among the least risky skydives done.
The death of the 18 year old tandem passenger at Lodi was essentially human error. The tandem instructor had a malfunction (the drogue didn't inflate) and didn't react according to the training developed. There was a whole controversy about how the instructor examiner didn't train the new instructors correctly and just signed them off anyway. The death was sadly mostly a failure of training and procedures. The gear malfunctioned, as all gear can, but the proper procedures likely would've resulted in a mildly interesting story told over beers instead of a tragedy.
You are more than likely, completely correct. These types of jumps are probably so safe that you are in more danger riding in a car to the jump than taking the jump itself.
If better data collection was mandated, similar to GA pilot logbooks, we would be able to back up your personal knowledge with hard figures. However, we are stuck using general epidemiological data.
I had a cousin who was a serious parachute specialist in the US Army. My understanding is that he only jumped when it was part of the job.
I used to knew a young woman whose family owned & operated a skydiving center. Once she was decently over 25 (fully adult judgment, supposedly), she never jumped again.
That's kinda the norm for dangerous sports, isn't it?
Motorbikes are dangerous; people often die riding. For many people the risks exceeds the rewards, and they choose not to ride. Other people have a greater appetite for risk, and choose to live until they die.
I myself refuse to strap on ice skates (or rollerblades) having had 20 titanium screws put into my arm after falling on the ice. But I knew the risk I was getting into when I got onto the ice.
I think you demonstrate a common human scenario where we over-estimate the risk in notable activities and far under-estimate the boring ones. Motorcycle fatalities are about 25x higher than car, but car deaths are pretty low. Meanwhile smokers kill themselves and others at very high rates, and general inactivity leads to indirect deaths a magnitude higher. I'd also argue premature death from sky diving > slow, declining death from poor lifestyle, but I recognize that's not a universal opinion.
I tried skydiving once, and was underwhelmed. Did nothing for me. I tried that "indoor skydiving" thing they had in Vegas, where you wear a particular style suit, and jump into an air stream powered by a propeller in the floor. The game is not getting slammed into the padded wall.
Maybe because I did that first, skydiving was less interesting to me.
Falling out of the plane, there was just a strong blast in my face. None of the "stomach drop" you get from the free fall rides at amusement parks, no sense of speed. Grounds approaching, but you're so high up its not approached THAT fast.
Anyway, never again.
That said, I do ride motorcycles. I have for a long, long time. Well versed in the statistics of riding, well aware of what I can and can't control. Aware of my efforts at mitigating those things that I do not control.
I "know" it's a riskier activity, I do not perceive it as risky, but I do respect the situation. That said, I have a saying. I love motorcycling, I do not recommend it to anyone. It IS dangerous. It's especially dangerous to new riders. There is a learning curve, where the lessons can be painful, expensive, or worse.
I do not ride to experience "risk", I don't "push the envelope", I have "chicken strips" on my tires. My bike has a "performance" mode, I do not use it. But I do love riding. It's a true joy in my life.
As an outsider looking in, there is a bizarre combination of advanced safety tech and completely useless standards in motorcycle safety gear. https://m.youtube.com/@FortNine has amazing videos covering all aspects of motorcycles that I have been enjoying as an outsider, including clear information on airbags, helmets, clothing, visibility, and how horrible pickup trucks are. Is it dangerous? More than a car certainly, but with good gear and training, it "appears" you can control for a lot of risks.
The big difference here is that most dangerous sports involve your own training, your own due-diligence and your own ability.
People go on the most dangerous motorbike trials after gaining a lot of experience, and training a lot. Moreover, they won't do it unless they've used the equipment before, know it well, they tend to prepare everything themselves, and test it themselves beforehand, etc. They are experts, and take full responsibility.
In this case, someone who had never sky-dived before, went to center where he wasn't expected to prepare the parachute, understand the mechanics, test or operate any of the equipment themselves. A "professional" would do it— as makes sense. So it really is upsetting when it turns out, as per the verdict, that the "professional" was actually not properly trained.
There are risks to everything, but the reason there's tight regulation and licensing for life-threatening industries is that those of us who aren't experts should at least hope our lives are in the hands of someone doing their best effort to ensure safety.
Going to a hospital to have surgery done on me, and doing the surgery myself are two very different decisions. I agree with you. I certainly have no reason to be upset if I cut myself open and end up with a nasty infection. If this happens at a hospital, and I later learn it not only happens often, but the surgeon isn't properly certified to do surgery, I have reasons to be upset.
I wish it was more socially acceptable to ice skate recreationally with safety gear. Falling on the ice hurts. Falling on the ice if you’re dressed like you’re playing hockey is considerably less unpleasant.
Most of the military jumpers have worn out backs, knees, etc from all the extra weight. Even if they wanted to jump for fun, they basically can't. At least that's for the guys I know.
Not sure when the people you know were jumping but I've heard a few older (non-military) guys at drop zones complain about shoulder, back and hip issues from harder openings with the rigs they used in the '90s and early '00s.
Parachutes are typically sized according to weight to manage rate of descent, so the extra weight shouldn't be an issue. Given the context I wonder if the military just calibrates around faster rate of descent because it's risky to stay in the air too long.
It ain't just the weight. Military jump situations are seldom optimized for joint safely - jumping at night, landing on rough terrain, etc. And neither military culture nor hostile defending forces encourage a "if you think you might have injured a joint, then remain in place and signal for medical attention..." approach.
(My cousin served from the later 70's to early 10's, mostly in the 5th Special Forces Group. Plenty of action, but rather tight lipped on details - as he should be.)
I don't think this knowledge is obscure. "Sky sports" are one of the few things that make a person practically uninsurable, along with scuba diving, motorcycle racing, and private aviation.
> make a person practically uninsurable, along with scuba diving, [...] and private aviation.
I don't know about motorcycle racing, but scuba and private aviation are plenty insurable. $1M 20 year term life goes for ~$100/mo if you're a younger pilot. There will be a somewhat smaller set of insurers to choose from, and a couple of outliers who try to charge you way more.
I don't agree with your comment about scuba diving.
Not to be a shill, but I always use World Nomads Travel Insurance when I travel for scuba diving. It is simple to apply online and pay with a credit card. They have two levels of travel insurance: one for low risk activities, and another for higher risk activities, such as scuba diving.
I did wonder if it was Lodi before even reading the article. I don't have any direct experience to know if the reputation is deserved, but indeed it does have one.
I don't really think this is about Lodi, or whether customers should know they could die. It's terrible law that makes this not only happen but inevitable.
Objectively, people are irrational about probabilities. Study after study shows that you can give people probabilities and ask them for decisions, and they will usually be wrong.
People are also incapable of understanding the legalese they're signing (that includes privacy policies as well).
Without actual understanding the substance or form, in theory there is no actual agreement, and thus no contract waiver of liability. (No theory of private ordering is predicated on duping people because that world only produces fraudsters.)
So this comes down to burden of proof: courts assume that if you're legally competent, you can sign away anything. There are very limited situations with strong evidentiary requirements for getting out of it. There's nothing socially beneficial about this assumption. It just makes contract law easier to administer.
In terms of regulation, there's no clear mandate for NTSB, the FAA, the county or the state. Indeed, the incentive is to ignore it: why spend a ton now to maybe save some indefinite person in the future?
Only the professional organizations - the medical lobby, the parachutist whatever - want to do (only) what's needed to keep business going, but that's not enough, and it's a strong incentive to hide problems.
Add to that lack of any personal honor (of being a responsible pilot or trainer or practitioner) in fields undertaking as any job in a backwards economy.
So: no regulation, no law, no private standards or personal honor will prevent excited customers from making this mistake, and some business person will engage in enough denial to make money off them.
At a minimum, neither waivers nor limited liability should not be available for gross negligence as a matter of law, and any form contract should be construed against the writer. Making this consistent and clear across all jurisdictions would root out most abuse without affecting responsible businesses.
It seems like so often the participants in an activity know where the problems are. Which suggests that surveying experienced participants and looking into whatever gets the most votes as hazardous.
> Study after study shows that you can give people probabilities and ask them for decisions, and they will usually be wrong.
This is somewhat true, but often the effect disappears when the scenario is described clearly. For example most setups for the conjunction fallacy are written in such a way that their ordinary interpretation is exclusive, but are claimed to be inclusive by the researcher. This is much like replying to an “x or y” question with “yes.”
For example:
Which is more probable?
Linda is a bank teller.
Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
An ordinary person will read the first as:
Linda is a bank teller and is not active in the feminist movement.
Because the first option is analyzed in the context of the second and ordinarily disjunction in English is exclusive where it isn’t explicitly inclusive.
> Objectively, people are irrational about probabilities. Study after study shows that you can give people probabilities and ask them for decisions, and they will usually be wrong.
For me its not about the probabilities its about the mitigations and ability to make an informed decision
On a consumer protection front, this activity lacks both
There’s no “look both ways before crossing the street”, its “sign this waiver before crossing the street, only 10 people actually died so I don’t know why you’re still on this topic”
There is a huge honking element missing from this analysis though. The definition of ‘good enough’.
Skydiving fatalities aren’t even in the top 100 causes of death in the US, and statistically if you drive any significant distance to the DZ you’re more likely to die on the drive there. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9859333/]
Unless the DZ is super shitty anyway. Even Lodi is way safer than recreational drugs though, and good luck stopping THOSE.
So I’d argue the relevant regulatory authorities are doing at least as much as they ‘should’ except for perhaps Lodi which is a public safety hazard.
With what I'm hearing about plane maintenance, dei pilots, and problems at air traffic control, I honestly think I would ride my motorcycle from SF to LA these days. That's how irrational people can be.
I once rode 22k miles in a year in the Berkeley and Central valley area. Technically that has the risk profile of doing 700k miles in a car. Not even one close call that year. Amazing what not being on your phone can do for you.
> “We didn’t stop because we don’t like the guy, we didn’t stop because we weren’t interested in the guy,” the center’s former owner, Bill Dause, told the local TV station, KFSN-TV, that day. “We didn’t stop because life goes on.”
If there was ever a quote that makes me understand why corporate PR teams tell everyone else not to talk to the press without training....
Right? Took a while to parse and fix that: "We didn't not stop because we don't like the guy, we didn't not stop because we weren't interested... we didn't stop because life goes on."
Then the other guy from the lobby association saying "denunciate" like it's a real word in his refusal to be interviewed.
Not getting a great sense of care about attention to detail in the industry, which I guess is the angle of the article.
> The most recent death at the center occurred in April 2021, when 57-year-old Watsonville woman Sabrina Call slammed into the ground after her parachutes tangled.
> “We’re sad, but it’s just like a car wreck or anything else,” Dause told reporters at a press conference two days later. “You have to go on.”
Another one from another article[0]... imagine being this complacent with people literally dying because of your business and its poor operation:
> "It's an unfortunate situation, but if you see a car wreck they don't close the freeway, it's something that unfortunately in this sport, in skiing, in scuba diving, there are fatalities"
Readit News
Amazing how a business can just decide to not pay a fine to the FAA, and apparently it's all cool. If I missed $200 on my income taxes, the IRS would be up my ass within a year for it, but apparently the FAA doesn't urgently need that $1M.
EDIT: It keeps getting better!
> Turner’s parents filed a wrongful death suit against both Dause and the Parachute Center; three years later, a judge awarded the family a $40 million judgment, writing in the decision that Dause was personally responsible for the payment. Francine Turner told SFGATE the family has never received any payments from Dause or the Parachute Center.
So he doesn't have to pay judgments either? I need to learn this guy's amazing financial life-hack!
It's long past time to stop letting rich people manipulate the legal system to get away with their criminality.
In regards to collecting, if a business is still open and collecting revenue, it’s a fairly easy target for collecting _something_. Whether a full $40 million judgement on a person/company can be collected is a different beast. There is a tremendous incentive to throw lots of billable hours at lawyers to appeal, or lots of billable hours to financial advisors to hide assets (shell companies, offshore jurisdictions, family members, fake identities, hard currency / commodities, etc). There is some evidence that AJones has done some of this (and that the Trump company at the heart of the NY fraud case has tried to migrate to FL and send assets to other entities).
The challenge is a lot of sketchy folks will ensure they hold very little directly themselves, which complicates things.
I mean, the IRS would... write you some sternly worded letters. They might call you on the phone. What else do you think would happen? Can you find an example of anyone who just ignored the IRS's letters over a $200 bill and something happened to them?
Society largely depends on people doing what they're told. Being a sociopath and just refusing to do what government agencies tell you to is a life-hack, of sorts. Just look at (some of) our billionaire class.
Dead Comment
Not that watching the safety video would have helped in this case, as the instructor was not properly trained and vetted in the first place.
Still, it shows the careless attitude of the business, and the skewed priorities of profit over people.
We took an instructional vhs course for a few hours and were allowed to jump solo with no previous experience.
The airplane hangar had a ‘wall of death’ that went to the ceiling listing everyone that died there.
I was afraid of heights at the time as well.
That said, it was a great experience and have no regrets.
The article is a little vague about the failure but I'm a skydiver and this might not be the instructor's fault. I know that sounds insane but hear me out.
The article says "main and reserve parachutes had tangled, preventing either from opening". This could mean a few things:
1. Neither chute was ever deployed - "total malfunction" on main and reserve where they're both stuck in the container (backpack thing holding the parachute).
An instructor following perfect protocol with a poorly packed reserve would have died here, and they likely did not pack the reserve themselves. Reserve chutes are packed by a master rigger who's required to apply a seal and update a little paper record on each rig indicating when it was packed and by whom. These are meant to be checked before you're allowed to get on a plane. Reserves are (thankfully) rarely opened until they're due to be repacked based on time. There's overlap between master riggers and instructors who handle tandem jumps, but the reserve was most likely not packed by that instructor.
2. Main deployed but has a "partial malfunction" (out but not fully open), reserve then deployed and tangles with the main.
This would be the instructors fault - in this case they should cut away the main before deploying the reserve.
3. Main has a "total malfunction" where it doesn't come out at all, instructor deploys reserve, then main deploys late and tangles with the reserve.
This one is inconclusive but probably not the instructor's fault. Protocol here is don't waste time cutting your main because you're falling fast with no drag from a partially deployed chute and the main is unlikely to ever open. The reason it could still be the instructors fault is if they had a chance to cut away the main after it came out and failed to do so before they tangled.
The square canopy had one end closed off by lines looped over the top of the chute, perhaps 75% was still inflated. The instructor decided to keep the main chute.
There was still significant drag, but no steering on the closed side, so we just spiralled into the ground at relatively high speed. The wind calculation was correct, so we hit a soft ploughed field.
Needless to say - we survived :)
As I recall, free fall is about 120 mph, while a tangled chute can cut it to 60 mph. I know this from a newspaper article about a man who survived a tangled chute fall onto pavement.
I’ve done a “solo” skydive where you jump out with 2 instructors and then they pull the line and you’re on your own. As a part of the training, we just had one motion (if I’m remembering right) to jettison the main and switch to reserve. Is that a potential configuration or do I have it wrong?
I have never skydived and have no interest in doing so but from reading the other comments it seems like there's another possible scenario:
Main deploys badly. They jettison the chute which deploys the reserve--but the jettisoned chute is hung up on something, doesn't actually jettison.
So, among the USPA's membership, there's a ~3 * 10^-6 chance of death per jump, which is basically compatible with how it had been described to me in the past: ~1/1000 chance that your main chute doesn't deploy, times a ~1/1000 chance that the reserve doesn't deploy, times a small factor because people (especially beginners) do dumb stuff.
At $10M statistical life in the US, that's $30 per jump, which is less than, but not vastly less than, the price of the jump itself. It seems quite plausible that the jump centers that are not members of the USPA have higher risk, which could start too look overly risky (in the specific sense that consumers would be much less likely to participate if they had access to the figures). But I'd bet it's less than $200/jump worth of risk.
I wish these sorts of discussions would focus more on the numbers and making sure the risks are tracked and public.
In other words, we would expect that 14 facilities of similar death counts to the one in the article would equal the total US fatalities for a year. The USPA dropzone locator [1] lists 142 facilities, so if we take everything at face value then this facility is ~10x worse than the average for USPA members.
> But I'd bet it's less than $200/jump worth of risk
In this case at least, it seems that this specific facility is higher risk than that. And with a lack of legally mandated reporting requirements, I'd say the onus is on a facility to prove safety once it's averaging a death every 1.3 years.
[1]: https://www.uspa.org/dzlocator?pagesize=16&Country=US
The issue is that I would expect at least a factor of 10 typical variation in the number of yearly jumps done at different facilities, so it’s hard to conclude anything without getting at least a rough guess of how many jumps they are doing. (The article correctly notes that the inability to find this number publicly is a real problem.)
So it seems the lesson here is to make sure you only jump at places that are part of the USPA.
> ~1/1000 chance that your main chute doesn't deploy
Yes
> times a ~1/1000 chance that the reserve doesn't deploy
No. There is way smaller chance that your reserve would not deploy, not even to M, but MM. I think there were some stories about fatalities caused by this. The one issue I remember - there was a gear issue in a condition, when a skydiver is passed out and on his back - AAD (Automatic Activation Device) fired at 1000 feet, and the reserve did not open in time. I am not sure if that was a fatality or not. But all the containers of this type went through modification.
Main does not open because they are packed by skydivers or packers in 5–10 minutes (or 30-60 if you are new). So you can skip the step, or do it not correctly, or forget something. Reserves are packed by FAA certified riggers and it takes at least an hour to pack the reserve. Reserves are packed similar to BASE canopies (where there is only one canopy, and it has to open).
> a small factor because people (especially beginners) do dumb stuff
That is a big factor. Similar to car drivers, some skydivers just feel too confident at the beginning of their career and start doing low, high-performance turns. And obviously, there are some other various factors - weather, other skydivers, other people, and own mistakes.
Thanks. Do you have a cite on this? I am pretty skeptical of any complicated mechanical system (including not just the packed suit, but also the calibrated altimeter, etc) having a 10^-6 malfunction rate. Like, I would consider having the altimeter mistakenly calibrated to lower elevation a case of “the reserve failing to deploy” even if it was packed perfectly or whatever. Likewise if your main deploys wonky, you cut it and get into a spin, and then reserve gets tangled as it comes out.
You may be comparing to the price of a tandem jump.
If you're a USPA member with a skydiving license and your own parachute, the price of a ride to 10k feet in a Cessna 172 is as low as $25.
However, there is definitely the possibility of death from jumping out of an airplane and I don't think any reasonable person would think there isn't.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9859333/#:~:tex....
https://edinburghorthopaedics.org/media/cfikoe2l/bunion-corr...
This suffers from the same issue as saying "200 years ago the life expectancy was 35".
Most of the people who die skydiving are inexperienced, reckless, or both. They are not the sort of people who are likely to make it to 1700 jumps.
If you say "among people who have survived 1700 skydives, how many died skydiving before reaching 3400?" I bet you will find it to be even safer.
https://www.uspa.org/about-uspa/uspa-news/uspa-posthumously-...
Edit: If the statistics held the same for him, at 46,000 jumps he had a 99% chance of dying from a failure.
A big problem is that when numbers change quickly, median numbers, or even average numbers, don't immediately capture that change. It can take YEARS for the real stats to come out.
That being said, it is absolutely ridiculous that this has become the drama it has. Federal departments should be given lawyers and be allowed to go after people.
Like this jump location, for example.
That sounds implausibly high to me? When I click through I see:
There are general risks of surgery: wound infection 7%, bone infection 1%, painful scar (5%), blood clot in the leg or lung 1%, Complex regional Pain Syndrome(lasting debilitating pain) 1%, bone healing problems 1%, amputation 0.01%, death 0.01%.
Amputation and death are really both 0.01%?
Like one, I assume tandem has a higher incident rate, and also that first time divers has a higher rate as well.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9859333/#:~:tex...
As I understand it, single beginner jumps are more dangerous than tandems with experienced jumpers which are more dangerous than experienced singletons. However, I don't think there is a significant difference overall. But in this study, there is no such data other than the overall statistics.
I'm a skydiving instructor, btw, with about 2,000 jumps.
Skydiving is remarkably safe considering all the factors involved. That's primarily for two reasons: The gear and the training
* Like anything in aviation, the gear has iterated over the years to be very safe. Skydiving in the early days was less safe. We have better gear now that has made it much safer. Same for aviation: Airplanes have a lot of safety features that they didn't have decades ago, and fatalities and incidents in general are extremely rare.
* Training has come a long way as well, with a more standardized curriculum and like the gear, iterations over the decade to address weak points. Procedures have been developed so when faced with a situation, we can react instead of analyze. Problem solving in the sky is not a good option. So the likely things that could happen, we have procedures for that we memorize. They're simple for solo skydivers, and a bit more complicated for a tandem instructor.
With well maintained gear and proper currency on procedures, skydiving is very safe. The most common issues are sprained ankles or broken wrists from band landings.
So what causes the deaths?
Like the rest of aviation, we are the biggest risk factors: Human error.
One of the leading reasons why skydivers are killed is a sport called "swooping", which is spinning a parachute to build speed and planning out right above the ground. It's a sport with very little margin for error. 10 feet can meant the difference of dragging your toe across the water for an epic video clip or a broken femur (or worse). In skydiving, femur is a verb. "I heard so-and-so femured". Do a Google search on it and you can see both why swooping is appealing the practitioners and also dangerous as fuck.
A tandem jump doesn't involve swooping. So by virtue of being a tandem passenger, the leading cause of death of skydivers is eliminated. Lumping all skydives together from a risk perspective doesn't make much sense, given the wide variety of risks associated with various types of skydiving. Tandem skydives, while not risk free, are among the least risky skydives done.
The death of the 18 year old tandem passenger at Lodi was essentially human error. The tandem instructor had a malfunction (the drogue didn't inflate) and didn't react according to the training developed. There was a whole controversy about how the instructor examiner didn't train the new instructors correctly and just signed them off anyway. The death was sadly mostly a failure of training and procedures. The gear malfunctioned, as all gear can, but the proper procedures likely would've resulted in a mildly interesting story told over beers instead of a tragedy.
If better data collection was mandated, similar to GA pilot logbooks, we would be able to back up your personal knowledge with hard figures. However, we are stuck using general epidemiological data.
You are definitely right about swooping though.
https://parachutist.com/Article/rating-corner-why-are-tandem...
I used to knew a young woman whose family owned & operated a skydiving center. Once she was decently over 25 (fully adult judgment, supposedly), she never jumped again.
Motorbikes are dangerous; people often die riding. For many people the risks exceeds the rewards, and they choose not to ride. Other people have a greater appetite for risk, and choose to live until they die.
I myself refuse to strap on ice skates (or rollerblades) having had 20 titanium screws put into my arm after falling on the ice. But I knew the risk I was getting into when I got onto the ice.
Maybe because I did that first, skydiving was less interesting to me.
Falling out of the plane, there was just a strong blast in my face. None of the "stomach drop" you get from the free fall rides at amusement parks, no sense of speed. Grounds approaching, but you're so high up its not approached THAT fast.
Anyway, never again.
That said, I do ride motorcycles. I have for a long, long time. Well versed in the statistics of riding, well aware of what I can and can't control. Aware of my efforts at mitigating those things that I do not control.
I "know" it's a riskier activity, I do not perceive it as risky, but I do respect the situation. That said, I have a saying. I love motorcycling, I do not recommend it to anyone. It IS dangerous. It's especially dangerous to new riders. There is a learning curve, where the lessons can be painful, expensive, or worse.
I do not ride to experience "risk", I don't "push the envelope", I have "chicken strips" on my tires. My bike has a "performance" mode, I do not use it. But I do love riding. It's a true joy in my life.
People go on the most dangerous motorbike trials after gaining a lot of experience, and training a lot. Moreover, they won't do it unless they've used the equipment before, know it well, they tend to prepare everything themselves, and test it themselves beforehand, etc. They are experts, and take full responsibility.
In this case, someone who had never sky-dived before, went to center where he wasn't expected to prepare the parachute, understand the mechanics, test or operate any of the equipment themselves. A "professional" would do it— as makes sense. So it really is upsetting when it turns out, as per the verdict, that the "professional" was actually not properly trained.
There are risks to everything, but the reason there's tight regulation and licensing for life-threatening industries is that those of us who aren't experts should at least hope our lives are in the hands of someone doing their best effort to ensure safety.
Going to a hospital to have surgery done on me, and doing the surgery myself are two very different decisions. I agree with you. I certainly have no reason to be upset if I cut myself open and end up with a nasty infection. If this happens at a hospital, and I later learn it not only happens often, but the surgeon isn't properly certified to do surgery, I have reasons to be upset.
On the other hand, I didn't start really living my life until I nearly died.
Parachutes are typically sized according to weight to manage rate of descent, so the extra weight shouldn't be an issue. Given the context I wonder if the military just calibrates around faster rate of descent because it's risky to stay in the air too long.
It ain't just the weight. Military jump situations are seldom optimized for joint safely - jumping at night, landing on rough terrain, etc. And neither military culture nor hostile defending forces encourage a "if you think you might have injured a joint, then remain in place and signal for medical attention..." approach.
(My cousin served from the later 70's to early 10's, mostly in the 5th Special Forces Group. Plenty of action, but rather tight lipped on details - as he should be.)
I don't know about motorcycle racing, but scuba and private aviation are plenty insurable. $1M 20 year term life goes for ~$100/mo if you're a younger pilot. There will be a somewhat smaller set of insurers to choose from, and a couple of outliers who try to charge you way more.
Not to be a shill, but I always use World Nomads Travel Insurance when I travel for scuba diving. It is simple to apply online and pay with a credit card. They have two levels of travel insurance: one for low risk activities, and another for higher risk activities, such as scuba diving.
Objectively, people are irrational about probabilities. Study after study shows that you can give people probabilities and ask them for decisions, and they will usually be wrong.
People are also incapable of understanding the legalese they're signing (that includes privacy policies as well).
Without actual understanding the substance or form, in theory there is no actual agreement, and thus no contract waiver of liability. (No theory of private ordering is predicated on duping people because that world only produces fraudsters.)
So this comes down to burden of proof: courts assume that if you're legally competent, you can sign away anything. There are very limited situations with strong evidentiary requirements for getting out of it. There's nothing socially beneficial about this assumption. It just makes contract law easier to administer.
In terms of regulation, there's no clear mandate for NTSB, the FAA, the county or the state. Indeed, the incentive is to ignore it: why spend a ton now to maybe save some indefinite person in the future?
Only the professional organizations - the medical lobby, the parachutist whatever - want to do (only) what's needed to keep business going, but that's not enough, and it's a strong incentive to hide problems.
Add to that lack of any personal honor (of being a responsible pilot or trainer or practitioner) in fields undertaking as any job in a backwards economy.
So: no regulation, no law, no private standards or personal honor will prevent excited customers from making this mistake, and some business person will engage in enough denial to make money off them.
At a minimum, neither waivers nor limited liability should not be available for gross negligence as a matter of law, and any form contract should be construed against the writer. Making this consistent and clear across all jurisdictions would root out most abuse without affecting responsible businesses.
This is somewhat true, but often the effect disappears when the scenario is described clearly. For example most setups for the conjunction fallacy are written in such a way that their ordinary interpretation is exclusive, but are claimed to be inclusive by the researcher. This is much like replying to an “x or y” question with “yes.”
For example:
An ordinary person will read the first as: Because the first option is analyzed in the context of the second and ordinarily disjunction in English is exclusive where it isn’t explicitly inclusive.For me its not about the probabilities its about the mitigations and ability to make an informed decision
On a consumer protection front, this activity lacks both
There’s no “look both ways before crossing the street”, its “sign this waiver before crossing the street, only 10 people actually died so I don’t know why you’re still on this topic”
Skydiving fatalities aren’t even in the top 100 causes of death in the US, and statistically if you drive any significant distance to the DZ you’re more likely to die on the drive there. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9859333/]
Unless the DZ is super shitty anyway. Even Lodi is way safer than recreational drugs though, and good luck stopping THOSE.
So I’d argue the relevant regulatory authorities are doing at least as much as they ‘should’ except for perhaps Lodi which is a public safety hazard.
I once rode 22k miles in a year in the Berkeley and Central valley area. Technically that has the risk profile of doing 700k miles in a car. Not even one close call that year. Amazing what not being on your phone can do for you.
If there was ever a quote that makes me understand why corporate PR teams tell everyone else not to talk to the press without training....
Then the other guy from the lobby association saying "denunciate" like it's a real word in his refusal to be interviewed.
Not getting a great sense of care about attention to detail in the industry, which I guess is the angle of the article.
But right, that other quote was horrible. Almost too perfect a fit for the complete psychopath image they were painting.
> The most recent death at the center occurred in April 2021, when 57-year-old Watsonville woman Sabrina Call slammed into the ground after her parachutes tangled.
> “We’re sad, but it’s just like a car wreck or anything else,” Dause told reporters at a press conference two days later. “You have to go on.”
Another one from another article[0]... imagine being this complacent with people literally dying because of your business and its poor operation:
> "It's an unfortunate situation, but if you see a car wreck they don't close the freeway, it's something that unfortunately in this sport, in skiing, in scuba diving, there are fatalities"
[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/40-million-ruling-against-skydi...